THE DISCOVERY OF NEW GUINEA. 19 
sixteenth century. At Guliguli the ship commanded by Serrao— 
an Indian vessel taken at Goa—was burnt, ‘‘ for she was old and 
rotten.” Other accounts say that the vessel was wrecked and the 
crew taken on board the two other ships, which then proceeded to 
Banda, where at ‘‘ Lutataio” the Portuguese were well received by 
the natives. The main Banda group consists of three islands—a 
larger and two smaller ones. One of the latter is merely a volcanic 
cone, named Gounong Api, a generic term signifying mountain 
of fire, borne by several islets of the archipelago. Gounong Api, 
together with Bandaneira and Lonthoir or Great Banda, form 
a secure land-locked harbour of great beauty, its shores clad with 
vegetation, except where the volcano raises its barren eminence 
above the bush-covered lower zone. ‘ Lutataéo” is probably a 
corruption of Ortattan, a village on tke north coast of Great 
Banda and one of the principal trading centres of the group in 
the sixteenth century. 
Banda is the home of the nutmeg, and here Abreu was able to 
obtain a full cargo of nutmeg and mace as well as of cloves. 
Here, too, he erected on the beach a stone pillar with the arms of 
Dom Manoel, as he had also done at Gresik and in Amboyna, in 
token that these places were henceforth under the supremacy of 
the Crown of Portugal. Having taken in his cargo, Abreu sailed 
for Malacca. Why he did not proceed to the Moluccas proper is 
uncertain. Castanheda attributes it to unfavourable weather. 
Others say that his cargo was fully made up at Banda. But he 
seems to have had some special reason distinct from these for 
curtailing his voyage, because he wished to make great haste to 
return to Portugal, in order personaily to convey to the king the 
assurance that the way to Banda was an open one. But Maffei 
relates that he died on the homeward voyage, ‘‘ deluded by a vain 
hope.” As for Francisco Serrao, he was either separated from 
the other ships by accident or parted company designedly, and, 
after many exciting adventures, found his way to Ternate, from 
which place he maintained an important correspondence with his 
friend Magellan, and where he died in 1521. 
When Abreu took possession of the island of Banda, he fixed 
its position by implication; for, by treaty with Spain, the 
Portuguese were only entitled to annex territory for the space of 
180 degrees eastward from a line of demarcation fixed in 1494 by 
the capitulation of Tordesillas at 370 leagues west of the Cape 
Verde Islands, or in about 47° 30’ W. of Greenwich. After the 
discovery of the Amazon by Vicente Pingon in 1499, the line was 
considered to fall through the western mouth of that river, or 
about 25 degrees too far to the west, for the fiftieth meri- 
dian of west longitude crosses the western mouth. If we 
measure 180 degrees eastward from that point, we arrive almost 
exactly at Bandaneira, which lies under 129° 50’ of east longitude. 
